


another spark for the fire

by thisbluespirit



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 4 Things, Alternate Universe, F/M, Multiverse, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 08:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17422826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: Whether or not they’re together here, there’s a multiverse of possibilities out there.





	another spark for the fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenmidalah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenmidalah/gifts).



**i**

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Killer Frost says, pinning down the Flash, icy white creeping up his arms under her hold as he gasps. “And yet you keep chasing me.”

“Your choice,” he says, shivering.

She smiles down at him. “So it is. Shall we try this again? You know, I think you _like_ our dates.” She kisses him, numbing his mind and stopping his heart with the chill of her lips. It’s like nothing else on earth. “Stay still, speedster. I’m not going to kill you. Where would be the fun in that?”

And when he comes round, gasping for breath, fighting to vibrate hard enough to free himself of the cold, he’s not sure she’s wrong about his reactions to her. He’s already looking forward to their next encounter.

***

**ii**

“You’re drunk,” he says.

She pulls down her lip in a grimace. “Not all that drunk. I just don’t want to be lonely any more. Do _you_ want to be lonely?”

Barry leans back against the wall of her apartment, and closes his eyes.

“Stay,” she says. “Just… stay. That’s all.”

He helps her over to the bed and she grabs at his top as she lays down, and doesn’t let go. 

“Caitlin,” he says, but she’s out like a light, and she’s somehow holding onto him. He sighs, first sitting on the bed, hearing the slight creak of the mattress under him, and then lying next to her. It’s a moment of surrender, even if she’s only snoring beside him. “No. You’re right, I don’t. I really don’t.”

When she wakes in the morning, he’s still there. He’ll never leave again.

***

**iii**

“You should be more careful,” she says, standing over him in the med bay.

Barry stares upward. Peril, innocent bystanders, what else is the Flash going to do?

“I know,” she says with a smile at him, as if she’s read his mind. She leans nearer. “We’ve lost too many others. You’re good, I know, but you’re not indestructible.”

As if to prove her point, his leg gives a painful twinge, and he winces. “Don’t remind me.”

She goes to move away, and he catches at her arm, red gloves on her white lab coat. “Caitlin. Thanks.”

“No problem,” she says, and she looks away, before she goes.

Barry turns his head the other way, and frowns. They _have_ lost too many people – it’s not easy to move on. But if you can’t move forward when you’re the fastest man alive, what can you do?

The leg’s already improving. He sits up, regardless of her instructions. He’s got something to do. Infinite fractions of a second later, there’s a red blur across STAR Labs, and he meets her in the corridor with a bunch of red roses before she’s barely left the room.

“Barry,” she says, and her voice breaks on his name. “Don’t. I can’t. It hurts too much.”

He pulls back his hood. “I know. But –”

This time she meets his gaze, and moves nearer, despite herself. “We have to?” she finishes for him, and puts a hand to his face, studying him as if he’s a biochemical problem that needs solving, before she gives an uneven smile that fills him with relief. The smile grows, light back in those dark eyes, and she kisses him.

Before he can get his breath back after, she draws back, and says, “And now, Barry – that leg? Rest up, or your doctor will be having words with you.”

“Only words?”

“I’m afraid so, if you’re not up to anything else,” she says, brushing her hand against his cheek. “I don’t make the rules.”

***

**iv**

He makes his way through Mercury Labs to the room he’s been directed to, and knocks on the door, even though it’s half open. “Hello? Dr Snow? I’m with CCPD.”

“Have I committed a crime?” she says, with an uneven smile. 

His expert is much younger than he’d expected; much prettier too. He mentally readjusts, and manages to knock a pile of notes off the end of the lab bench, and, flustered, dives down to pick them up.

“Uh, no,” he says, once he’s gathered them all. “I needed some expert advice and searching around tells me you’re the person I want.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I see. Well, I’ll do what I can… officer, is it?”

“Barry Allen,” he says, “CSI.” He grins and holds out his hand.

She takes it in hers in a brief shake. “Dr Caitlin Snow. So, what is it you want with me?”

And suddenly he finds that’s a way more complicated question than it was when he walked in the door. He smiles and says, “How about we start with a robbery?”


End file.
